Black folks, get ready for The McCarran Act, Part II. And this time, it may get ugly.

More on what the McCarran Act was later. First, I’ll share with BlackAmericaWeb.com readers an article a reader -- who was apparently hoping that I might devolve into some kind of right-wing religious fanatic -- sent me last week.

Our exchange started after I wrote a column about a group of Baltimore Muslims led by W.D. Mohammed, the son of the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who assumed the top NOI post after his dad died in 1975. The subject was those now-infamous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers and the subsequent overreaction of some Muslims.

The Muslims I interviewed -- all black Americans -- took a dim view of the Muslim protests. One woman even said that, while she was offended by the cartoons, she knew from living in Middle Eastern Muslim countries that newspapers there print things even more offensive.

But saying something positive about any group of Muslims offends that group of Americans who, since Sept. 11, 2001, have appointed themselves instant experts on the religion of Islam.

So, the reader sent me a string of emails insisting that all Muslims, everywhere, think alike and have the same agenda: the destruction of the state of Israel and the subjugation of America to Islamic rule.

I tried to reason with the woman, insisting that Muslims I know want nothing more than to practice their religion in peace -- and that lumping people of one religion, ethnic group or race into one category because of the actions of a few is just the kind of thinking that led to six million Jews being dispatched by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

You can see how well that worked. Reason did not prevail. The woman then ‘fessed up: she said she was a born-again Christian. I wondered if the phrase “born-again Christian” was nothing more than the latest euphemism for narrow-minded religious bigot.

But she sent me a copy of an article entitled “Black Muslims: A Fifth Column Inside The  United States?” A “fifth column” is any organization, group or people who actively work on the inside of a country to help its enemies. So the implication was clear: all black Muslims in America are, by definition, disloyal.

The article used Sgt. Asan Akbar as proof. A black Muslim in the U.S. Army, Akbar is alleged to have tossed hand grenades into his officers’ tents in Kuwait City back in 2003. So, because of the actions of one guy, all black Muslims in America are considered disloyal.

If you think that logic is shaky, wait until you hear this. The article offers as further proof of black Muslim “disloyalty” comments by some black American Muslims critical of the war on terror and the war in Iraq. And here I was thinking that black American Muslims had as much right as anyone else to criticize the war on terror and the war in Iraq.

But whoever wrote this nonsense stumbled with this quote: "The Chicago-based Muslim American Society … is an offshoot of the Nation of Islam headed by Louis Farrakhan. MAS is headed by Imam W. Deen Mohammed, the son of NOI founder Elijah Muhammad. Mohammed had fought for control of NOI after his father’s death, but lost to Farrakhan.”

Anyone who was at the NOI’s Savior’s Day convention in 1975 -- when W. Deen Mohammed assumed leadership, not only without opposition, but with Farrakhan’s support -- knows that the above passage is just plain wrong. But some folks aren’t going to let facts get in the way of their plans for persecuting black American Muslims. And if right-wing religious nutbirds -- who are giving true conservatives a really bad name -- get their way in persecuting black Muslims, you know who’s next.

That’s right: the rest of us. And it won’t matter what our religion is. Don’t be surprised if we see The McCarran Act revived, first targeting black American Muslims, and then the rest of us.

The original law -- also called the Internal Security Act -- was passed in 1950 and legalized several things. The most controversial may have been a provision giving the president of the United States emergency powers to send “potential subversives” -- simply another name for “fifth columnists” -- to internment camps.

That’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Not even the right-wing religious loonies running rampant in America.